I (Used To) Live Here Monday - Meijer

I am not going to do Meijer justice.  I am going to leave you saying "I don't get it, isn't it just like some weird Michigan version of Walmart or Fred Meyer?"  And for that, I am sorry.  Maybe the best thing to do is to find someone from Michigan who has moved away, and ask them about Meijer.  There is a 93% chance they'll tear up a little bit.

If God dies, he's going to end up at Meijer and wonder why heaven sucks so much.

At Meijer, they sell everything, and they do it cheaply.  Need clothes?  Go to Meijer.  Need furniture?  Go to Meijer.  Need a fountain for your garden?  Go to Meijer.  Need any kind of food or drink?  Go to Meijer.  Need a black-market baby?  Go to the inky shadows behind Meijer¹.

I like lists.  Here's a breakdown of Meijer vs. Walmart, in fancy table form.

Important Issue	Meijer	Wal*mart
Literacy	Silent "j" - badass.  Silent letters are like the ninjas of spelling.	Silent *.  * isn't even a letter, so this all results in confusion and decreased American literacy.
Miracles	I have not seen it happen myself, but I'm pretty sure Meijer is where Jesus learned to turn water into wine.	Every time someone buys a three sizes too-small tube-top, a guardian angel dies.
Greeters	Happy and kind.  Possibly on some kind of upper.	Kidnapped from nursing homes.
Ad campaign	A million reasons, a single store (this jingle gets stuck in my head every time I go home).	A smiley face that makes everyone want to punch smiley faces in the... uh... face.
Rainbows	In the middle of every Meijer, there is a field full of unicorns and rainbows. And, right next to it, there is a cheaper Meijer Brand field full of 5-color rainbows and a horse with a birthday hat on the front of its forehead.	Wal*mart hates gay people.
Mechanical Pony Rides	One cent.  Adults not prohibited (officially).	Null set (which means the sobbing of tiny, innocent children.  And me.)

In short, Meijer is where happiness and love come from.  It's why Michiganders are so friendly.

If you ever visit Michigan, go to Meijer.  Just don't get the Meijer brand mac 'n cheese... it tastes like burning tires and genocide.

¹On that note, weird things happen in the Meijer parking lot after 11 pm.  Park close and stay in the light.

Venn Diagram Wednesday

Ok, today's not Wednesday¹.  But this is a blog that is theoretically² dedicated to projects that suck in the first place and then I never finish.  So, it seems appropriate that my first of this weekly series is a day late (literally) and a buck short (not literally... unless my Venn Diagrams get beaten up and are forced to cough up their lunch money).

I love Venn Diagrams.  I often use them when they are not the best way to convey information because they're so much fun.  Sometimes I describe them using my words because there are no surfaces around to write on.

In an effort to raise awareness about how flexible Venn Diagrams are, every week I will use the same Venn Diagram set-up to depict a minimum of three different sets of information.  I promise that this information will never make you smarter, and in some cases may actually lower your IQ (if you're having one of those terrible high IQ days).

Quickly!  To the Venn Diagrams!

Have you wondered what Venn Diagrams are for paragraphs and paragraphs?  Wonder no more!

I doodled this one during my staff meeting on Monday.  It was getting dangerously close to lunch.

 If ninjas and pirates were actually that close, the geek's ultimate wet dream of a fight would be happening.  I have strong opinions about the victor of this fight.

¹Or, as they will be called from now on around here, Vennsday.
²In practice, it seems much more dedicated to my weekly haiku.^3
3That's a haiku.

My Crappy Sayings

I feel a great emptiness inside.  It's 90% hunger because it's almost lunch time, 4% from where a soul would be if I weren't gay, but a full 6% is empty¹ because I don't have a snappy ending to "Every time you say you don't believe in gay marriage.... "  Why am I thinking about this?  Because I was Peter Pan for Halloween, and as we all know, every time you say you don't believe in fairies, a fairy dies.

I'm pretty sure that anyone² who doesn't believe in gay marriage wouldn't have a huge problem with "Every time you say you don't believe in gay marriage, a gay (or gay marriage) dies."  But what about these?

Every time you say you don't believe in gay marriage...

• ...a God-fearing, evangelical couple in Alabama gets divorced³.
• ...Dick Cheney has a heart attack.
• ...an embryo's stem cells are harvested, bringing us that much closer to curing various diseases... and killing a baby⁴.
• ...Herman Cain sexually harasses an employee while denying sexually harassing an employee, right in front of someone from Politico.
• ...a child learns about evolution, then falls asleep during the intelligent design lesson.
• ...Obama's approval rating goes up by a point.
• ...a minority and/or illegal immigrant gets that migrant worker job that you were all jazzed about applying for.
• ...a book with four and five-syllable words gets published.
• ...science happens.
• ...two teenagers have unprotected sex on top of their abstinence only homework while wearing their promise rings and then are on "16 and Pregnant."
• ...Sarah Palin gets asked what publications she reads, which is totally a trick question from the elite liberal media, those bastards.   She protects us from Russia, doncha know.
• ...a Kardashian gets divorced³.
• ...Chuck Norris gets punched by a ninja.

Uh, I am running out of things that showcase my prejudice against the south, GOP candidates, bigots, people who can't read good (and don't want to do other things good, too), and reality TV stars.

Any other suggestions?  Any favorites?  Any haters⁵?


¹Numbers not your thing?  I made a pie chart⁶.

²Wow!  Over-generalization!  That whole sentence is totally offensive!
³This is actually true.
⁴If you're in Mississippi.
⁵I think my blog needs some haters.  Then I'll really feel like I've made it.
⁶I am really into pie charts today, probably because this morning I saw a quiche that looks incredible, and quiche is like the meal version of pie.

Special Edition of Haiku Friday - Libra Birthdays

In honor of a whole bunch of birthdays this month of close friends (and me, who is the closest of all my friends), here is a special birthday edition of Haiku Friday.  An extra big happy birthday to Em & Heather, whose birthdays are actually today!


Happy Birthday, Em & Heather!
You will always be
Eleven days behind me
Please enjoy your youth

The 27 Club
I have been informed
It will prove I'm a rock star
If I die this year

Why I Can't Stay Up Past Nine On My Birthday
Cake!  Get in my face!
But, I beg, this time do not
Leave a food coma

A Full Three-Quarters of the Women I have Dated Have Been Libras
Hey there, Libra lady
You know, it's my birthday, too?
We should get it on

Would It Be Socially Acceptable For Me To Go To A Bar Dressed As A Ninja?
Drinking beer is great
But birthdays used to involve
Wearing a costume

Me vs. The Door

I should start out by saying that I love the place where I live.  It is perfect for me and has a huge and beautiful yard that is perfect for me dog.

However, since I moved in, I have been engaged in a war with the bedroom doors (hmmm, that is much to rhymey, and I would rather not say "war with a door" any more than those two times in this post.  Maybe it's more of an epic battle).  To be fair, they are folding doors, so they are unlike 98% of all the doors that I have used.

Round 1 went to the doors.  I struggled to open them for the first couple weeks that I lived there.  But it's totally normal for an adult to be stuck in her own room, right?

Round 2 went to... my dog.  He figured out how to open the doors at about the same time I did and used that skill enthusiastically every morning at 6:45 right before my alarm went off.

Round 3 went to the doors and my dog.  I'm pretty sure that they conspired all day while I was gone at work.  He opened the door, per usual, but instead of just opening, it fell on me and woke me up.  After inspecting myself for life threatening injuries¹, I went to check on the door... and that's when I discovered that it was held together by wire.

For the next month or so, the door leaned up against its frame and experienced feelings of instability, neglect, and ostracism.  I felt a sense of superiority and laziness; every time I looked at the door I thought, "I control your destiny, door!" which I'm going to count as a win for me.  (For those at home keeping score, that's Doors: 2, Dog: 2, Human: 1²).

Finally, one night, fueled by beer and a brief bout of courage, I decided to fix the door.  I knew there was a high risk that I would end up gluing my hand to the door, but I was willing to take it.  I was going to win this battle.

As a safety precaution, I wrapped my hands in paper towel while I handled the glue (we can glide right past the fact that I was doing this all in my underwear, so maybe I should have covered more than just my hands...).  I knelt down over the broken door, glue at the edge of the bottle... and realized that the wires were still on the broken part.

I spent 15 minutes trying to get them off and was rewarded with several bloody fingers and two mangled, but still tight, wires.

"Fine," said I, "Keep your stupid wires!" and then I put glue everywhere I could fit it in the broken part.

Interesting aside:  did you know wood glue foams when you expose it to air?  Neither did I until after I applied it and then read the instructions!

When I awoke in the morning, the door was fixed (yay!), but the hole for the pin that holds the door to its frame was all full of glue-foam.  Hard, hard glue-foam.

Interesting aside the second:  know what's a great way to start the morning?  Hammering a pin into hard glue-foam!  In your underwear, which is apparently the only way I work!

By the time I left for work, I had two standing doors.  I had succeeded.

Except somehow neither door was actually set correctly in the door frame.

I think now it's time to go to the graph to see how I have done overall against the door.

Not graphed: Doors laughing heartily at my failures.  I ran out of colors, but I can tell you it would be a line at 2 all the way across. 

Oh, I have clearly lost.  At this point, the door is galloping around my house, with my desecrated carcass  attached to the back of its chariot³.



¹There were none, except for the emotional ones.  An irrational fear of doors shouldn't be a problem, right?  I can just live in a tent!  I know just the place for that!
²Ninjas: 3,467,591.  They always win.
³It would appear from my multiple Troy references that the only epic poem I've read is the Illiad.  I will try to casually work in some other classics references so that this blog attracts the right crowd.